State of the Blogger Address

Most blogs tend to be personal in nature. While this blog’s focus is usually not on me or my life, the fact that I have aimed this blog at friends and associates means that it’s reasonable to assume at least a few might want to know how my bride and I are doing. If, on the other hand, you’ve stumbled onto this blog and know / care nothing about me and my personhood, then feel free to skip on to something more interesting. I’m not so pretentious to think that someone who doesn’t know me already would naturally be interested to hear all the details of my life.* * *For those of you who haven’t heard, in July of ’05, my wife Holly and I made the difficult decision to follow what we felt to be God’s leading to move across the country from Chicago to Portland, Oregon. It was a pretty difficult decision, for a lot of reasons. Fundamentally, we just didn’t want to do something that monumental unless we were sure that God was calling us to do it. And on the practical tip, we really weren’t trynna move again. ‘Cause when you’re in your mid-twenties, you end up moving a bunch of times, in and out of dorms, in and out of parents and relatives, in and out of apartments with friends. And after a while, it gets old. Plus, the last time I had moved it was into Holly’s apartment, which was in a nice cozy brick building a few blocks away from where I worked. And having just gotten married in October of last year, it was the first time I had lived in a fully-furnished apartment with nice things. For most of my adult life, my furniture consisted of janky borrowed couches, cement blocks, my computer, and a bunch of books and CDs. So it was somewhat reluctantly that we began, in August, the process of packing our things into boxes so that they could be carried by strangers and put into a storage facility, while we drove our ’96 Dodge Intrepid 2500 miles across ten different states. Good times, lemme tell ya.

I’m now the vocal director for Irvington Covenant Church, the church my father started about 17 years ago. (Hard to believe it’s been that long.) Right now I’m working a corporate temp job that might become more permanant, and Holly is in transition between jobs, although this newest one she’s excited about because it’s part time, so she gets to spend more time holding things down on the home front. Which is definitely good for both of us. Holly and I aren’t completely settled in yet, because this fall has been the busiest fall in the history of my family. A funeral, two weddings, new church, new jobs, and a host of other dramatic subplots have meant precious little downtime at home to do things like open boxes and hang curtains.

Anyway, now we’re enjoying life in Portland. It’s a great change of pace from what we experienced in Chicago. Even though there are things we miss terribly about Chicago (go White Sox!), we’re glad to be in the right place at the right time. We’ve got a cozy apartment across the street from a city park that features a rose garden so beautiful it’s hard to believe it’s actually in the hood.

And Holly still can’t believe that these low-30s temps are the coldest it’s probably going to get in Portland. She keeps asking me, “So… when do we get winter around here?” We both miss the snow, but only in a nostalgic, aesthetic sense. We don’t really miss bitter cold, howling winds, or the nasty traffic snarls that Chicagoans have to endure every year.

Rain we do get plenty of, but when I think of it as a free car wash every few days, I enjoy it a little better.

Anyway, I guess that’s enough for now. For more details, email me or give me a call at five oh three, seven five four, seven four eight zero.